


Different Worlds, Different Tales

by Ethnee



Category: The Sims (Video Games)
Genre: I come up with stories while playing my destress game and I write them down for my husband to enjoy, Multi, and now you can enjoy them as well, if you like - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-13 16:05:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12987570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethnee/pseuds/Ethnee
Summary: From Alexis Messina, the small town girl with big city ambitions, to Lily Weathers, the quiet nerd who works hard so her mother doesn't have to -- these are the tales of varying families in varying parts of the world, all going through their own unique hardships, and learning to laugh and love and cry by the end of it.





	1. The Messina Family - Part One

****The bus was empty, save for her, and rocks kicked up against the underside of it as it rolled down a dirt road that stretched across endless hills of nothingness.

Well, not nothing. Corn. Horses. Cows. Hogs, though those weren’t seen, but smelled.

Alexis held her hand to her face, inhaled the warm and perfumed scent of her own skin rather than the foul stench of the hog farms that lined this part of the road. Bridgeport was only another two hours away. Just the thought of it made her heart beat faster in anticipation, in fear, in _readiness_ , and her hand involuntarily gripped tighter around the handle of her suitcase.

Alexis Messina was born to a humble family in Riverview, a quiet country town built along a river where most everyone either farmed, raised animals, or knew someone who did. People came to Riverview because it was the exact opposite of the big city - or, as Alexis would say, the exact opposite of anything interesting.

You see, Alexis Messina was a strong-willed girl from birth. Her father liked to joke that she came out of the womb scowling, because no one had prepared the world for her arrival. She had come out scowling, and that bad temper had lasted up through her childhood, manifesting less in temper tantrums (though those did occur) and more in an unshakable sensation that she was _meant_ for something.

“Ally’s gonna be a star someday, if you’re not careful,” the neighbors would laugh, having coffee with her parents. As soon as she’d been able, Alexis took to the school stage, auditioning for every part she could and spending half the time chiding the other children for not paying as much attention as they ought.

For a time, this meant Alexis didn’t have very many friends. Then, somehow, around the time of her twelfth or thirteenth birthday, she seemed to figure out how people worked, and then she had the world wrapped around her little finger. She always knew just what to say, or how to flatter, or how to sidle up to someone just so and have them hang on her every word.

But this wasn’t enough.

Daily, Alexis mourned the fact that she was stuck in a small, inconsequential farming town. She loathed the field trip days, when the farm kids with the farm parents and the farm-simple brains would get to go out and pet cows and shovel horseshit. This wasn’t the life she was meant for, no matter how much her parents tried to instill in her an appreciation for gardening or animal handling.

No, Alexis knew she wanted to go the big city. She wanted to see the world, to see all kinds of different people, to be on TV and in the gossip mags her mother read. She wanted people to look at her, she wanted wealth and power, she wanted big TVs and acres of land that other people took care of, she wanted fancy fur coats and impenetrable sunglasses that gleamed with the flash of every paparazzi camera.

Her family laughed. _Alexis, why would you want to go to the big city? You have everything you could ever need, right here._

Alexis decided early on that her family would be of no help. So she had to do it herself. This would become a running theme in her life.

It took twenty years. All of childhood, all of highschool. Then two years of working and scrimping and saving, bussing tables and biting back selfish tears as her soft hands turned rough and work-hardened. But finally, just after her twentieth birthday, she had the money saved for the move.

“Ally, you don’t really mean this,” her mother pleaded, suddenly contrite and concerned now that the dream Alexis had talked about for years was coming to fruition.

“Yeah, I mean - there’s work in the fields, with your brothers and sister,” her father added. “You don’t need to go up there. People - people up there’re different, Ally. It ain’t like it seems in the movies.”

“I know, dad. But I’m going anyway. I already bought the ticket.”

“But what about-”

“And paid for the apartment. And for my luggage. And I have plenty more in savings.”

Her parents looked at each other. The truth was, Alexis Messina would always get her way. There was no stopping her when she got her mind set.

So after a few tearful goodbyes and a hurried climb aboard the bus, she was here. Heading to Bridgeport, the capital of fashion, music, and movies. Celebrities were born and killed there, fame gained and lost in the blink of an eye. It was a dangerous game, and one only played by either the smart, the stupid, or the very lucky.

Alexis felt she might be a bit of all three.

She didn’t realize she’d dozen off until the bus chiming its arrival startled her awake. She blinked, then jumped up, grabbing all her suitcases and clamoring off the bus. At last, she saw the full of Bridgeport, and couldn’t help the faint parting of her lips in awe.

The buildings stood taller than any she’d seen before, titans of industry and power, and the world hummed with the energy of people coming and going, subway cars roaring beneath the earth and taxis whizzing by, people in strange, high-fashion clothes pushing aside each other on the sidewalk without sparing a glance to who got left behind. Airplanes flew overhead, and the bright blue sky and river water of her hometown had been replaced with an almost grayish, smoggy sky and murky coastal waters.

It was perfect.

Shaking her head clear, she began the first step of the rest of her life - checking into her apartment.

She’d insisted on renting the finest apartment she could afford, and then some. It was easy - comforting, even - to aim lower, for the cheap, shitty apartments favored by most new arrivals. But that wouldn’t do. For one, Alexis Messina deserved better, and for two, if she wanted to make a name for herself, she couldn’t do that while living in squalor. The girl living in the fancy high-rise apartment is a much more believable up-and-coming actress than the girl living in a studio apartment overrun by cockroaches.

Sure, she had no furniture, but she wasn’t dumb. Food could be scrounged from her job, a gym membership was easy to get and it provided showers, laundromats could be used to wash her clothes, and a bed could just be one of the first things she bought.

But that left the job. Making sure her makeup was impeccable, her hair combed and full of product, and her clothes tight but not _too_ tight, she marched into the casting office with her resume - expertly filled out and written to best flatter herself - and slapped it on the first agent’s desk she saw.

It didn’t take long for her to get steady work as an extra, as she managed the delicate balancing act between being plain enough to let the actors shine, and appealing enough to hopefully stand out if a speaking role was ever needed.

After that came schmoozing. One director was doing a lot of work lately, and he seemed to like her, calling her for extra work more often than not. She knew an opportunity when she saw one, and leapt at the chance. Turned out he had been dating some hot young girl, a wannabe actress he made into a star, but she dumped him when fame came a-calling and she decided she didn’t want to be attached to a bespectacled old man anymore.

Alexis nodded sympathetically. “I can’t believe someone would do that,” she said, and reached to gently touch his hand, eyes wide and sweet. “The lengths some people will go to.”

If she had to fuck him, she would, but sleeping your way to the top tended to leave a bad mark on one’s record. Better to feign sincerity or something like it, so it becomes a love story instead of a drama. And never, ever, let the press tell your story. Always be the first to gossip about yourself.

Befriending the director and a few other people on set, she was already on her way to becoming a stagehand or personal assistant. The rent was less crushing, now, though she still stole all her meals from the buffets provided at every shooting and she still showered at the gym.

Time went by in a flash. Some might have found it discouraging, to be working so hard and for so long, and to see no real reward for it, to still be financially struggling and to have no friends or connections. But it’s what Alexis craved, what she’d been planning for her whole life. This was all necessary. Her opportunity would come someday.

Through the director she met a few other celebrities, and becoming the director’s “protege,” or his excuse to have a hot girl on his arm at special events, meant she got to have her face out there. She got the occasional speaking role, three lines at the most, and helped around more on set.

Before she knew it two years had gone by, where she hadn’t seen her family except over Facetime for those same years. A part of her did feel guilty, for saying she was “so busy” that she couldn’t make it home for the holidays, but she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing all her extended family, of being teased and picked apart and pestered to the point of madness. She’d have to tell the same stories over and over again to different people, and deal with the hog stench and blue sky and clean river waters…

Alexis shivered.

Two years had gone by, and given her minimal celebrity status she started going clubbing. It wasn’t her favorite. She didn’t enjoy drinking to excess, and didn’t plan on testing any gloryholes anytime soon. But going to clubs and events and bars was a good way to meet the local celebrities, to see them let loose a little when the bouncers kept the paparazzi out.

It was here she met Matthew.

Dressed in a tight little black dress and heels that cuffed around her ankle, she brushed carefully swept hair out of her face, the dyed-blonde locks framing her big, olive-green eyes and full lips. It was late, and she wanted to go home, but she wouldn’t let herself. This was a stakeout mission. A sting operation. A hunt for prey. She ordered another drink and watered it down with ice, watching the swells of people gyrate and sweat around her.

Then, there he was. Broad shoulders and strong chin, the handsomely unshaven face and the hair done by what only could have been a personal stylist. Matthew Hamming was a rising star in the film world, and come the release of his next movie, many predicted he’d be the next Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp.

Alexis’ eyes flashed, and a slow smile crept along her lips. She stood, sauntered over, and sat next to him at the bar.

“Hi,” she said, lips parted and eyes sparkling in that striking way that might have been desire, might have been _hunger_.

Matthew turned, stopping mid-order of his drink to run his eyes over her, dark pupils lingering pointedly on her long legs, made longer for how short her dress was, the swell of her breasts straining against her clothes, her full and lipstick-darkened lips, and finally her eyes, glittering and hungry and wanting.

“Hold on that drink,” he said, without looking at the bartender. “No, make it two.” His lips spread in a wide smile and he turned his whole body to face her. “Hey. How are you?”

Matthew Hamming might have been a heartthrob and an almost-famous actor, but he was also a massive slut. Known for his cold feet in relationships - girlfriends were rare, and never lasted long - and his love of beautiful women, almost every week the tabloids screamed about his latest conquests.

Sleeping with your director was different. Taking advantage of a slutty man who happened to have everything you wanted, was another.

They drank, she laughed at his jokes, she leaned and shifted in such a way to press out her cleavage, to flash the bright pink of her thong, let her hand rest on his knee and then casually, “accidentally,” drift up his thigh and brush over his groin. Then she stood and grinned and swung her hips in the right way, and then she was in the women’s bathroom, and she could personally attest to not everything in the tabloids being made up.

Then it was over, and Matthew was getting ready to leave, though his hands wandered a bit, grabbing at her and running his stubbled face over the softer parts of her. “We should do this again,” Alexis said, careful not to let the boy escape from her waiting trap.

Matthew made a pleased grunt of assent before leaning back, not a hair out of place in his perfectly gelled ‘do. “Sure.” He winked. “Call me.”

“I’d like that,” she said, stepping forward with a hand on his chest to keep him from going. She met his eyes, and let her fingers drift under his chin to pull him just a touch towards her, keeping him physically and emotionally off-balance. “You should give me your number.”

He blinked, then chuckled softly, and pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket to scribble down some numbers. “You better make it worth my while,” he said, winking again as he handed over the paper.

“I plan on it,” she purred. She glanced aside, and in the shadow of the cracked-open bathroom door she saw the reflective gleam of a camera lens poking inside. “Let me give you a taste.” And she pulled him in for an abrupt kiss, as erotic as she could get in five seconds.

The camera flashed, and Matthew jerked back, head turned to the source of the noise, but the photographer was already gone, and Alexis brought his eyes back to hers with a simple touch to his cheek. “Don’t be a stranger, now.”

With that, Matthew left, and Alexis breathed a quiet sigh of victory.

 

The picture of them kissing was all over the internet by the next morning, and Alexis sat on her bed in a bathrobe, sipping coffee as she scrolled through her phone and read the comments. There was your standard deluge of fangirls and boys decrying her for stealing Matthew from whatever ex-girlfriend or old flame they thought deserved him better. Alexis snorted.

She finished her coffee. Then there was work to be done.

The next year was devoted to acting and Matthew, her two great schemes. She knew she wasn’t the only girl Matthew was seeing, but the trick about boys who can’t make up their minds, who think they’re hot shit, who hate “commitment,” is to sneak into their lives and weave yourself inside them before they realize, and by the time they’re thinking about leaving you or breaking off the affair, you’re too much a part of them to remove without a sudden pain.

The sex was easy. She came when he called, and called him enough times of her own, stifling her desire to marvel at his mansion house and spreading her legs as requested. It was hardly a chore - he was good at what he did, after all, or all the other women wouldn’t keep coming back. But she made careful sure never to ask him to “commit” or anything like that. Just weaved herself into his life.

Suddenly his fridge had more than leftovers and takeout. She took him on dates framed as sexual exercises, groping him in back alleys just as they held hands for the paparazzi. Suddenly the tabloids became about her. “Hamming’s New Mistress? We Have An Interview!” They didn’t, of course, but it’s what they said. Other girls came and went, but somehow Alexis always lingered, with the right soothing words and pretty legs and strange way of fixing whatever ailed him.

His movie came out, of course, and it was as everyone predicted. He was a _star_ , a celebrity, a beloved performer, who got invited to every event imaginable and held massive parties at his mansion and never tired of women to warm his bed.

But he’d gotten used to her. He wouldn’t throw her away, so now she had to make her move.

“Matthew,” she said one morning, after having slept over at his house. “I was thinking.”

He hummed interest as he sat at the kitchen bar, taking the pancake breakfast she’d “prepared” for him - passing storebought off as your own was easy - as he mopped sweat from his face after his morning jog. “I thought we didn’t do that.”

She laughed her practiced, tinkling laugh. “I try not to. But... “ She leaned forward, letting a touch of cleavage show through her bathrobe as she set her elbows on the bar counter. “Maybe we could… get serious. I hate to stop you from sleeping with other girls, even if none of them are as pretty as I am, but it would be nice if I could just stay at your house instead of having to go back to mine.” She winked. “Think of all the fun that could be.”

But he didn’t share her mirth, some of the color leaving his face as he set down his fork, chewing slowly. “I don’t know.” His shoulders tensed as he leaned back, chiseled jaw set. “I think we’ve got a good thing as it is. Besides, heartthrobs aren’t supposed to settle. Have to stay single for the chick fantasies.” His eyes wandered, searching for a clock. An excuse to leave, Alexis realized.

“Oh, of course, sweetie,” she gushed, coming around the counter and sidling up to him, sitting on his tight with her arms looped around his neck. His arm curled around her waist, though his expression didn’t change. “I know how important your career is to you. I’d never stop you from being a _star_.” She let her tone go a little breathy, sighing against his cheek before kissing it back to his ear and running her teeth over it. “You know I’d take whatever to be with you.”

She felt him relax, and relief filled her. His grip around her waist tightened, shifting her further onto his lap to press against something that was very much not his thigh. “That’s what I like to hear,” he mumbled, and nudged her bathrobe apart with his face.

Alexis sighed internally. _Another day_.

A week later she spat out her morning coffee all over that same bathrobe. “ _What!?_ ”

_Matthew Hamming comes out about secret love affair with small town girl Caroline Custard - can this journalist and superstar make it work?_

The words on her phone’s screen stared at her tauntingly. She scowled. How dare he? A week ago he acts like he’s not ready to go official with anyone, now he’s off with some tart in glasses with a bad dye job? Defensively, Alexis touched her own dye job. Hers was lovely and tasteful. Clearly this _Caroline_ woman didn’t see a good stylist.

A year of wasted effort. _Pah_. Well, another superstar beau could be found. Maybe. Even a B-List actor would do. She was still struggling to get her acting career off the ground, relying on networking and her preferred director’s favor to find work against the people with film and acting degrees. She needed someone new, someone hot, someone who’d get her noticed without requiring so much labor.

Back to clubbing.

The next few weeks proved lonely and fruitless. If celebrities were out partying, she wasn’t meeting them, save for a few nobodies who knew somebody in the business and thought that made them “cool.” At least the bar people knew her and gave her discounts.

“Oh, wow, Alexis Messina!”

She turned at the sound of an enthusiastic voice, half-inaudible from the sounds of music and smoke machines coming from the stage. Running up to the bar was a well-muscled, good-looking Asian man, face split in a pleasant smile. “You’re friends with Alan Stanley, the director, aren’t you? I’ve seen you at events!”

Her lips spread in a well-rehearsed, picture perfect smile. “That’s me. Do you want an autograph, or?”

“Yeah, sure, of course!”

He came forward with a shred of paper, something pulled out at the last minute, and she scrawled her signature on it plus some vague inspiring message. As she handed it back, she couldn’t help but notice how _very_ good-looking the man was. High cheekbones, soft lips, and intense, bright eyes, more bright and intense than almost any she’d ever seen. Plus he was fit as hell and had nice hair, and his smile was pleasant without being overbearing, intense without being intimidating. He just seemed… nice.

Alexis ran her tongue over her teeth. “What’s your name? Have I seen you somewhere?”

“Kai. Kai Leiko. You might have seen me on TV - not that I’m playing anything special. I do some small-time TV acting to help pay the bills.” Again with that soft, nice-but-not-too-nice smile.

But he wasn’t a star, she sternly reminded herself. She wasn’t here to fuck nobodies. She was here to better her career. “Cool,” she said, and turned back to her drink to take a sip, hoping he’d get the hint and wander off.

“I’ve seen the stuff you do,” he persisted. “You’ve really got some talent, you know. I’m surprised you don’t get bigger parts. I mean, I get more lines than the stuff I’ve seen you in. And I’m no great performer.”

She hesitated, lips resting on the rim of her glass as her brow furrowed. “How much of my stuff do you watch?”

“A decent amount. But then, I try to keep track of other people trying to make it in the industry. I don’t think I’m all that great, but I try.”

Something hummed in the back of her mind, gears beginning to turn. “Why don’t you tell me about the other people you’ve seen? Who else is up and coming?”

He slid into the bar stool beside her, and began to talk. Told her about Emmy Starr, the girl who’d been dating Alan Stanley before abruptly leaving and trying to make it on her own, with surprising success, to the rich and beautiful Lola Belle. He lingered on her a little longer than he should, and Alexis remembered something about Ms. Bella having a much younger, less famous boyfriend. A small smile spread across her face. Maybe this Kai and her weren’t all that different.

And, as the night wore on, it seemed so. The conversation gradually drifted away from talk of other celebrities to just talking about each other. They discovered that they were the same age, and discussed movies and the industry into the wee hours of day, laughing and buying each other drinks and making for a much more enjoyable evening than Alexis planned.

But then it was daytime, and she hadn’t even realized how late it was getting, but the bartenders were nudging her out and trying to clean up. “I guess we should go,” she said, almost reluctant.

“Yeah.” Kai lingered. “Hey-” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out another scrap of paper, scribbling on it for a minute before handing it to her. “My autograph,” he said, with another of those smiles. Written on the paper was a series of numbers that looked like a phone number, signed with his name.

Alexis took it with a matching smile. “See you, Kai.”

“See you, Alexis.”

Then they left side by side, and headed home in opposite directions.

Three weeks later, the tabloids were aflame with the news that Matthew Hamming and his mysterious non-actress lover had broken up, and would this mean that fan favorite Alexis Messina was the culprit? The day after that Matthew showed up at her apartment with flowers, condoms, and a promise to do better, so evidently it was.

Thus began her fourth year at Bridgeport. Acting more and working harder, she balanced stage work with more speaking roles, small though they were. Dating Matthew bumped up her reputation significantly, her visage now printed on every magazine cover and on every episode of celebrity gossip television. But with this new official relationship came a degree of truth - Matthew revealed that his agent wanted him to settle down a little, and that he and Alexis stood a chance at being a “power couple.” Alexis and Matthew went to events and parties together, had sex, and smiled for the cameras. Outside of that, they spent most time apart, working or otherwise.

It was all Alexis planned for, and more.

But she still spent a lot of time with Kai. They ended up going out on weekly or biweekly lunches, visiting each other on set or seeing movies together. All in disguise, of course. She might be Matthew Hamming’s girlfriend, but she wasn’t a superstar yet, and Kai was practically a nobody.

She did find out that he was dating Lola Belle, however. The woman was in her forties and had adopted a young boy recently, out of some desire to have a family as her hair began to gray (though it never showed due to her constantly redying it blonde) and she played house with her young, handsome boyfriend. Kai never complained, though. In fact, he rarely said anything at all about her.

“So what _is_ Lola Bella like?” Alexis would try to ask. The woman’d been around for years and remained one of the most popular stars of her generation.

Kai would shrug, make a brief comment, and change the subject. Alexis never pressed him.

Years rolled by. She became the other half of Matthew’s power couple. She stayed strong as she was accused of public indecency, paying for the slander lawsuit and eventually winning it. She starred in commercials and hosted local government events. She was even invited to some sort of goth vampire party that she quickly excused herself from, once she figured out what it was.

She couldn’t keep her mouth shut when Lola Belle announced she was pregnant, however.

“Is it yours?” she asked abruptly, one afternoon at the beachside diner they were having lunch in.

Kai sighed. “Yes.”

“Was it… an accident? She’s spinning it like it was her plan all along, but.” She delicately sipped her chocolate and vanilla swirl shake.

Kai shifted uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

If there was anything about Kai that she’d learned these past few years, it’s that he tended to expect things to go his way. And they usually did - he tended to get good jobs, to take chances that worked out, to hit all the stoplights right when they turned green, yada yada. But that made him all the worse at dealing with things when he didn’t get lucky.

He also had a habit of telling jokes wrong, or badly, or forgetting what you said to him after you said it. It got worse when he was preoccupied, but if you wanted him to pay attention you generally had to say so. At first this made Alexis get impatient, as she tended to think fast and expect everyone to keep up. But after a while she realized Kai was happy to let her do most of the talking and the thinking, so she filled the air and let him be her calm, pleasant-smiling sounding board. It worked out well.

And he genuinely was a rather bad actor, but as he liked to say - it paid the bills. Even though that was supposed to be Lola’s job. Alexis wondered, not for the first time, if Kai was as good in the sack as he had to be to get the job of Lola Bella’s sugar baby.

But she shook those thoughts off, as she always did. “I didn’t think you were supposed to have kids over forty. Isn’t that why she adopted that poor kid and named him _Jupiter_?”

Kai shrugged again, looking rather morose. “Money pays for good doctors. The baby’s supposedly doing well.” His expression changed to bittersweet hope. “It’s going to be a boy.”

Alexis didn’t bother acknowledging that, brow screwed up in thought as she nibbled her lower lip, grimacing at the taste of her lipstick. “What does she _really_ think of all this?”

Kai thought for a moment. “I think she likes the novelty of it. Being pregnant, having all the cameras on her again. She’d been getting… bitter, as she got older, and forty-five year old musicians aren’t as hot or cool. Twenty years ago, her wearing a black leather jacket and booty shorts was titillating. Now it makes cringe compilations online. This might be her last claim to fame, at least for a while.”

“She could always release a new album,” Alexis snorted. Her gaze wandered back to Kai, and she frowned. “Kai, why do you stay with her? I mean, I guess, the kid, now, sure. But before then. Were you really happy being her sugar baby? Is that what you wanted?”

Kai ran a hand through his hair, enough to be attractive without messing up his look. “Yeah. It was. She paid my stuff, I got to do nothing other than… Well, the same you do for Matthew, I’m sure. I-” He stopped. Swallowed hard, adam’s apple bobbing on his slender throat. He leaned forward, staring into the creamy depths of his milkshake. “I’ve… There’s something I never told you, Alexis.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “Spill, Kai.”

His lips turned up in a brief, wry smile. “I… I’m not, from, here. I was born in a small town. Like, really small. The kind of town that’s marked as a rest stop you hit to get gas and water and gawk at the locals. I’ve got a lot of brothers and sisters, and they’ve got a lot of kids of their own. I just - I happened to be born pretty. That’s all I’ve got. I’m not smart or ambitious or good with people like you, Alexis. I’m pretty. And… I like my family. That’s why I came here, why I went with Lola as soon as I could. I can send her money and my money back to my family.”

He sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair with a thump as his sturdy torso hit the seat. “And now I have a son. A son!” He flung his hands in the air. “And he’s-” He paused, face softening. “I can’t- I can’t regret having a child. I love him already. I want to hold him and see him grow up and everything. But…” He shook his head. “Forget it. I’ve already said enough as it is.”

Then his gaze lifted and those shocking bright eyes were on hers, all pleading and intense, that look that always made her heart skip a beat. She looked away.

Alexis had never thought about having kids before. It was never something that crossed her mind, something she considered. Children were for farm brats who believed that God would protect them and then got knocked up at sixteen and married at seventeen, their entire lineage doomed to hog farts for an eternity. Children were loud and messy and obnoxious, and had no sense of propriety or common sense.

“Kai,” she said, “no more thinking. You’re coming clubbing with me. Tonight.”

He gave her a look, despite his smile. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“It’s a fine idea. We’ll dance and drink and party like someone spiked the punch at junior high. You, me, and no inhibitions. And no buts, either.”

He huffed a laugh. “Fine.”

And the plan commenced. Alexis, with all her connections and reputation, got them into the finest club with the rooftop hot tub, and ordered her friend to drink. Kai obliged, knocking back some shots and then swaying on the dance floor to a beat most decidedly _not_ what was playing from the speakers, but no one questioned him.

“So you’re Alexis Messina.”

Alexis arched a brow before she even saw who it was. A quick turn on her heel revealed Emmy Starr - successful actress, two years younger than Alexis, and ex-girlfriend of famed director Alan Stanley. Brown skin and skinny as a rail, with features Caucasian enough to be appealing to the masses and skin still brown enough to be some kind of ethnic.

Alexis flashed a polite smile. “Ms. Starr, what a pleasure. I don’t think we’ve met before.”

Emmy Starr curled her lip, but just slightly, taking a sip from her martini glass. “We haven’t. But I’m sure you know that you work with my ex, Mr. Stanley.”

“Oh, yes, I do know him. I am - was, a big fan of his work when I came to Bridgeport several years ago, and he took me on as a protege.” Still with the plastered smile.

Emmy’s stony expression didn’t change. “I’m sure he did.”

The smile faded, just a touch, as Alexis’s brain worked at lightning speed. Emmy Starr didn’t like her. Would an actress rivalry work out in her favor? No, best not. Not when Ms. Starr was a more popular actress. The press would all favor her, and harangue her as some two-timing floozy, only gaining the success she had through sleeping with both Matthew Hamming and her director. Better to make an alliance, then. But Ms. Starr probably thought she’d taken her place as Alan’s favorite via blowjobs and compliments, much like Emmy had done, though hers had supposedly been genuine.

So how to play this?

“Matthew’s told me a lot about you,” she tried, pushing her smile back to full brightness as she turned fully to face her target. “And I’ve seen your work online and on air. I’d be jealous but I can’t fault your talent.” And she laughed her delicate, tinkling laugh.

“Mm.” The other woman gave a noncommittal hum, scanning the crowd. But she didn’t seem like she was going to leave, though she didn’t seem particularly interested in the conversation, either. Alexis felt she was being watched, judged, just as she was watching and judging in turn.

“I love what you did on the Quantum Malfactor,” Alexis tried, referencing the sci-fi show where she and Alan had met. “For an original story on an indie budget, you really made it something special.”

Emmy took another sip of her martini, expressionless.

A bead of sweat dripped down Alexis’ temple, something resembling panic beginning to set in. What kind of star didn’t respond to flattery and schmoozing? “And- And really, I’ve been interested in your career for a while, I almost hoped to be like you. When I first came to Bridgeport I never got the boom of fame you did, though. At least, career-wise. But hopefully that’ll change.”

Emmy swirled her drink around her martini glass, looking bored. “Fascinating.”

So she didn’t like flattery. That spun Alexis for a temporary loop. Not being able to schmooze and manipulate her ego meant she’d have to be something like genuine, have to figure out how to have a conversation that tipped the balance in her favor.

“Sorry,” she finished. “Fan nerves, I suppose. Ah - let me get you another drink.” She ordered something small, not too alcoholic but expensive enough to be generous. As Emmy examined it, Alexis went on. “So, I mean - not to pry, but how are things? I know what the gossip mags say, but those are hardly gospel.”

“Alright enough, I suppose,” Emmy said. _Good._ That was more than a grunt or something dismissive. Alexis remembered that Emmy Starr had recently jilted (or been jilted by? She couldn’t recall) Reuben Littler, a less popular celebrity. They’d even been engaged for a time. The wound might still be fresh.

“I heard about everything with, ah, Reuben,” she said, as quiet as she could over the music. She made her eyes wider, softer, more sympathetic. “I, uh… I almost had something similar happen to me. With Matthew and that Caroline girl a while back. Not that Reuben’s seeing another woman, but… You put enough work into something, someone, fall for someone as hard as you do, then almost lose not only your happiness but your reputation.” She shook her head softly, sipping from her drink. “It sucks.”

“Yeah. It does.” Setting her jaw, Emmy knocked back the rest of her martini, and called for another drink. Something harder.

The rest of the night was spent like this, making small talk, all measured replies and empathetic statements to make Emmy think she wasn’t so bad. Alexis saw bits of herself, in Ms. Starr. A hot head, an unbending desire for perfection, and a natural charisma that made heads turn. She knew Emmy was playing the same game she was, just from the other side, and if nothing else she could respect it.

Eventually Emmy finished her drink and picked up her purse, standing from the bar stool. “I have to go,” she announced. “Have a good night, Ms. Messina.”

Alexis tingled. “Wait.” She stood and stepped after her, mind racing. She had to do more, had to say more. This was an ally she needed to make. “I-” She stuttered. “I’m having a party, on friday. You’re welcome to come if you like.” She nibbled her lower lip. “ _Everyone_ will be there.”

Emmy observed her, then nodded. “I’ll think about it. Good night, Alexis.”

“Good night.”

A lie, of course, but the only thing she could think of. That meant, however, that she needed to _have_ a party on friday for real. Today was Tuesday - or, well, Wednesday, given that it was after midnight. She could pull it off in time. She was sure of it.

The next morning, after having gotten Kai home safely, in her bathrobe and armed with her coffee, Alexis started making phone calls.

“Hi, I’m Alexis Messina. Can I speak to the owner please?” A pause. “Yes. I’d like to make a reservation at your venue. For Friday.” She winced as the voice on the other line raised. “Ma’am, please.” She nibbled her lip. “ _Matthew Hamming_ will be there,” she said. “As well as many other big names. Surely you can do me this favor and pull some strings? I’ll pay double the fees.”

Venue secured. Then she started texting everyone, everyone she knew. Matthew, then Emmy, then Alan. Then Lola Belle, though she didn’t know her well, but Kai had given her the woman’s phone number a while ago. Then all the more popular actresses and actors she knew from work. Everyone and everyone had to be there.

She got a bartender, a caterer, a DJ, a venue, and guests. By the time the party rolled around, it was like she’d been planning it for weeks. Paparazzi lined the streets to snap photos of her famous guests as they strolled into the club, all dressed in the highest fashions. The music was loud and neon lights flashed, and as soon as everyone arrived Alexis ordered a round of drinks for everyone, sparking a round of cheering and hollering.

“Alexis!” Emmy’s voice resounded above all the noise, a slender brown hand waving above the crowd.

Alexis wandered over with two martinis, handing one to the other woman. “I’m glad you came,” she said, glancing over Emmy’s shoulder as a recently-unpregnant Lola Belle sauntered in, Kai hanging on her arm. Kai waved and she waved back.

“Yeah, well.” Emmy sipped her drink after staring into it faux-suspiciously. “Free alcohol.”

“That’s always a winner.” Alexis gestured to a booth in the corner. “Wanna talk?”

“Sure.”

And so they chatted, making small talk and discussing the industry, other people they knew, various films and series’ that were coming out of late. Every so often Alexis tried to sneak in a compliment, something to flatter her ego, something to get Emmy to talk more, but every time Ms. Starr ignored it or curled her lip.

Finally, at Alexis’ second attempt to compliment Emmy’s fashion sense, the latter woman threw up her hands and stared Alexis down. “Cut the bullshit,” she said. “I’m not some egotistical superstar who thinks I’m a god ‘cause I starred in a few movies. I wear what my publicist gives me, alright? No more bullshit. Talk if you want to talk, but I don’t play this game.” Her gaze sharpened, lips pursed. “Did you sleep with my ex?”

Alexis hesitated. “Alan Stanley?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Alexis said, and took a sip of her drink to hide her growing sense of unease. The scales of power were tipping.

“Did you think about it?”

Alexis thought. There were different ways she could answer that question, any number of ways to bring the conversation back to its business-like falsity, where they could be shallow and manipulative and talk about clothes and boys and become unspoken allies in a shared, cutthroat industry. But Emmy was staring at her with something… different, something hungry and desperate and unfamiliar. “Yes,” Alexis admitted, daring to lower her guard. “But I never wanted to sleep my way to the top. Plus it would have made both you and Alan look shallow, and then any help you could have given me would be made cheaper, anyway.”

Emmy observed her still. “What about what you did with Matthew?”

Alexis sighed. “That’s… That was different. Alan would’ve been easy, and cheap. Matthew took time and work and even now, our relationship is mutually beneficial. I’m using him, but we both know it, and it’s acceptable.” She tilted her head aside. “Did you really love Alan?”

Emmy stiffened, then sighed. “Yeah. I did. I thought I did, anyway. I was eighteen and wanted to be a star, Alan was older and powerful and wanted to make me one. I meant everything I said and did, I thought he was smart and “mature” and that he loved me ‘cause I was special.” She shrugged bleakly. “Then I made it big and suddenly he wasn’t helping me anymore. Holding me back, instead, and suddenly he just looked like a pervy old man who took a pretty girl and made her famous through an artsy snuff film.” And she knocked back the rest of his drink.

Alexis nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Emmy paused, looked her in the eye again. “No more bullshit, okay? You’re smart, I’m smart. We don’t have time to be catty and manipulative and tear each other apart for the tabloids. I thought you were just using Alan, and that pissed me the hell off, but if you’re just a cold ass bitch trying to make a living in a harsh world…” She nodded. “I can respect that.” She stuck out a hand. “Friends?”

Alexis drew back, staring at the outstretched hand in a mix of fear and suspicion. “Friends” were not a thing people like her had. Well, except for Kai. But Kai was… different. Somehow. Allies and resources and connections, maybe, but never friends. Alexis never let her guard down, never trusted anybody, never relied on anybody but herself.

Then again, it looked like neither did Emmy.

Hesitantly, Alexis shook the proffered palm. “Friends.”

Emmy smiled. “Now, let’s go fuckin’ dance.”

The night was young and beautiful, and for one Alexis Messine got to relax and let her hair down, dancing and drinking with a friend. And that was… weird. And maybe it was too fast, maybe they didn’t know each other well enough, but that’s just how Bridgeport worked. It was fast and loud and hectic, and people fell in and out of love and life at a moment’s notice. The two were more similar than they were different, so why not say “fuck it” and try at a genuine friendship?

Then it was late, and people started heading home or swaying drunkenly to other clubs or stumbling into bar bathrooms for clumsy sex that’d make headlines in the morning. Emmy hugged her and waved goodnight, the former setting Alexis all off-kilter. But mixed with the liquor and the dancing and the sense of being able to relax for once, Alexis didn’t mind so much.

She laid back on one of the booths, watching the world spin and sway around her, and she blinked to make out the form of someone drawing near. Kai’s handsome face entered her vision, smiling gently as he always did. “You had a night,” he remarked.

“Yup,” she announced.

“I saw you made a friend.”

“She’s nice.” Alexis smiled back. “What are you still doing here? I thought I saw Lola leave hours ago.”

“So did Matthew,” Kai pointed out. “Lola always needs to be mysterious. She ran out the back and took a limousine home. I figured I’d could stay and hang out in case you needed me. No one will notice me, even if I go out the front.” He smiled a little wider.

“You’re nice.” Alexis attempted to stand, but the ground seemed to go out from under her, making Kai slide an arm around her back to hold her up. “Take me home, Kai,” she mumbled, and maybe she was drunker than she thought or maybe the liquor was an excuse, but she let herself lean against him and press her face into his neck.

The subway was almost empty this time of night, save for a homeless man who smelled like poop who took a picture of them with an old flip phone. The night was dark and thick as they staggered down the sidewalk towards Alexis’ high rise, and she pressed the button for her apartment while still clinging to Kai, unwilling to let him go quite yet. She fumbled for her keys and Kai followed her into her apartment, now beautifully furnished and decorated, a far cry from what it had been when she first arrived.

“Nice place,” Kai said.

“Nice like you,” Alexis said, splashing water on her face. She wasn’t that tipsy, but her house was cozy and quiet and _Kai_ was in it and she was happy and she’d made a friend and things seemed to be going surprisingly good for once.

She turned and saw Kai investigating her TV and sound system, lips puckered in curiosity as he pressed a few buttons. Suddenly salsa music blasted from her speakers, making him jump back and Alexis bark a laugh. Meeting his gaze, she did a few faux-spanish dance moves as she sidled up to him. “Let us dance, mi amore.”

“That’s italian,” he informed, though he didn’t argue as she laid a hand on his shoulder and linked her free fingers through his own. They swayed around her living room, bumping into the couch and dining chairs as they stepped on each other’s toes and giggled.

“And you’re Japanese. I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

He breathed a quiet laugh and drew her closer, fingers so gentle against her hip and waist, other hand strong but smooth around her own. Alexis rested her head against his chest, just under her chin, letting her eyes fall shut as she inhaled the smell of his cologne, mingling with body odor from dancing at the hot club.

Song still playing, Kai slowed, drawing his hand from her waist and up her back. “Alexis.”

Alexis stuck her chin out in a stubborn, decisive pout, a look she’d perfected as a child but hadn’t used in years. She leaned back, dropping her hand from his shoulder and gripping ahold of his collar. “Shut up,” she said, and kissed him.

Kai didn’t go home that night.

There was no bathrobe or coffee in the morning, no pouring over articles on her phone or making appointments for commercial filming or texting other celebrities to see if they wanted to go dancing. They loitered in bed ‘til eleven, kissing sleepily and waking up before dozing again, one trying to get up before being grappled by the other and dragged back down for a sloppy, morning-mouth kiss.

It wasn’t anything like with Matthew. With Matthew she was out of bed as soon as she woke up, doing her makeup before he rose and meeting him in the kitchen with breakfast prepared, everything done just so. With Kai, she hadn’t bothered taking her makeup off the night before, and even with foundation and mascara and lipstick and blush all smeared across her face like some kind of hideous skin-tone clown, he didn’t question it, just kissed her and handed her a baby wipe with one of his gentle smiles.

Sex was different, too. With Matthew it was good because he was good-looking and knew it, ‘cause he grabbed you and touched you and enjoyed you before getting down to business, and then that was that, and the fun came from just sleeping with Matthew Hamming, one of the handsomest men in the business. It was easy, quick, it made your heart race and then it was over.

Kai was… different. She hadn’t known what to expect, hadn’t known what to want, but he offered it, strong hands so gentle and mouth as kissable as she’d always expected it to be. It wasn’t quick or easy, it was lovely and overwhelming and when he drew up to kiss her it wasn’t ‘cause he was trying not to finish, it’s because he wanted to kiss her, and that alone did wonders for her.

Of course, eventually they had to get dressed, as they both had work today, and Kai had never gone home to his girlfriend and son, Seth. Alexis had a boyfriend, too, she remembered. She couldn’t help a laugh at the thought of it. Matthew Hamming, hottest man in the world, totally forgotten in favor of some TV-actor nobody.

“What’s so funny?” Kai asked, toying with her hair after sliding on last night’s shirt.

“Nothing,” she replied, and leaned over for a kiss. Everything in her just wanted to be touching him, all the time, and that feeling refused to go away. She cupped his cheek with the kiss and pulled back only reluctantly. “You should try going out the back. I don’t think it would look good for either of us if… anyone found out.”

“Yeah.” Kai dimmed slightly, the smile on his lips fading as he stopped mid-button of his shirt. “Alexis- was this- are we-”

“Is this a thing?” she finished for him.

“Yeah.”

“... I’d like it to be,” she offered. “I know you’ve got Seth and Lola, and I know Lola’s a lot more rich and famous than I am, and I know I’m supposed to be with Matthew and that might be more than you want to handle right now, but-”

“It’s not.” Kai reached across the bed, laying his hand over her own. “Things are… complicated. But not with you. I can be with you if you want to risk it.”

Her face softened into a smile. “I do.”

They kissed, and Kai left, and then Alexis had to clean up and go to work.

More time passed like this. Alexis had… friends, finally. And someone she loved. She saw less and less of Matthew, though they still went to events together and played the part of power couple. She spread her legs as he needed, though she found herself having to fake it or bruise his ego. She didn’t dare imagine what Matthew Hamming would do if he found out his woman was thinking of another man while he fucked her. But she couldn’t help it if her standards had changed, if she craved someone who touched her and savored her instead of just doing his business.

Kai never talked about his time with Lola, but he did talk about Seth. A lot. Seth was his pride and joy, and despite the influx of paparazzi brought on by being Lola Belle’s son, Kai doted on the boy with all his heart. “He’s a fussy baby,” Kai would say, stars in his eyes. “But so sweet! And so good with people. He loves people looking at him and making faces at him.”

From what little Alexis gleaned, Lola was not exactly an involved parent. She’d adopted and named her son, “Jupiter” on a whim, and though the boy wanted for nothing and had nannies out the wazoo, Lola was always more concerned with her albums and artistic projects than anything else. The same went for Seth. He was a novelty, a darling, a nice accessory to her image, but at the end of the day he wasn’t her biggest priority.

Emmy remained a close friend. As scandals and men and trends came and went, Emmy and Alexis were steadfast, matching each other in intensity and ambition, though Alexis preferred power and wealth while Emmy demanded creative perfection in her work. The tabloids pointed out that Alexis spent more time with her best friend than her boyfriend, which sparked a hasty change of image and several tolerable dates with Matthew.

Autumn came, where the sky turned grayer and the coastal water murkier, the trees lost their leaves and fashion became less about showing skin and more about accentuating one’s assets while still somehow staying warm. Alexis and Kai’s affair had been going on for quite some time now, Seth just turning five and the two of them approaching their thirtieth birthdays. Alexis had spent ten years in Bridgeport, now.

As she stepped off-set of her latest project, Alexis got a text from Emmy. _Costume party at my place!_ the phone screen read. _Come to this address!_ Followed by a street name.

Alexis smiled and texted back her confirmation.

She’d never been to Emmy’s house before, or vice versa. It wasn’t uncommon for performers and creative types to use their homes as a sort of sanctuary, a place where business and pleasure did not mix. Parties were the occasional exception, however.

At the end of the week, Alexis got into a mermaid costume and a trenchcoat to cover it, and rode her limo to the address given. But she was confused when the rich neighborhood faded away behind her and they drove to the edge of town, to a cabin right by the water on a barren patch of land. The house was small, and rickety, and the paint had long faded.

Alexis checked the address on her phone again to make sure it matched, but it did. “Wait for me,” she said, and hesitantly exited the limo, padding up to the front door as the cold winds blew against her trenchcoat. She knocked on the door. “Hello?”

The sound of muffled footsteps came from inside the house, followed by the undoing of a lock and finally the door opened, revealing Emmy, dressed in her typical high fashion, only changed by the addition of a cheap hockey mask. “You came,” she said, smiling but bittersweet. “Come on in.”

Alexis waved to the limo driver and padded inside the house, shucking off her coat and adjusting her mermaid seashell bra. “Where’s everyone else?” she asked. The inside of the house was as bleak as everything, with cheap furniture and dusty floors, plain windows with theft-prevention alarms on each of them.

“They didn’t come,” Emmy said, sliding with a huff onto her single couch. Alexis couldn’t see her face, but the melancholy in her tone was enough. “I- I hoped, that maybe with my success, maybe I could host my own parties, that no one would judge where I lived. But…” She wiped her forearm over her face.

Alexis padded over, blue mermaid tail dragging against the floor as she sat beside Emmy, one hand laid gently on the other woman’s shoulder. “I thought you lived in the Hills, Emmy,” she murmured. “What happened?”

Emmy released a bitter laugh. “I haven’t lived there since I broke up with Alan. We tried making it work for a while, but then it just wasn’t, and then I was living with Reuben for a while, but then he jilted me, and then I didn’t have anywhere to go. Living costs were stupid expensive and I was spending a ton trying to keep the paparazzi from tearing me to shreds, so I just bought this stupid fuckin’ cabin out on the edge of the city.” She spread her arms, waving around her. “At least I have land,” she said, somewhere between laughing and crying.

“Oh, Emmy.” Alexis leaned over and pulled the other woman into a hug, holding her as she cried. When the tears stemmed, she leaned back and held Emmy by the shoulders, looking her in the eye. “Fuck ‘em,” she said, decisively. “You and are having a costume party. Just the two of us. We don’t need anyone else, right?”

Emmy smiled, wiping her eyes. “Get out the nail polish and the ice cream, it’s a fuckin’ girl’s night.”

“Bet your ass it is.”

They ordered pizza and watched movies and danced to old halloween-style music, talked about nothing and everything, painted each other’s nails for the hell of it and gossiped.

Eventually it was late, the autumn sky turned black and blue and stars beginning to wink into light, Emmy and Alexis curled up on the couch as an old black and white monster movie played on the TV.

Emmy popped some popcorn into her mouth. “How are things going with Matthew?”

Alexis sighed, wrinkling her nose. “It’s going.”

Emmy glanced at her friend. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“It’s not going good, it is. I mean, fuck, I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been going good for a while, but you’ve been tight-lipped on that.” She sat up, crossing her legs. “Come on. Tell me the good shit.”

Alexis grabbed a pillow and held it to her chest, drawing up her knees. “I don’t know.”

“You do. Don’t bitch out on me.”

“I… Well, I’ve been having an affair.”

Emmy’s eyebrows shot into her head. “Kai?”

“Fuck you.”

“I knew it! Fuck, I’ve been calling that shit for years. Were you dating before or after he had his kid?”

“After. Way after. We only started the night I invited you to that first party.”

“ _Damn_ , I didn’t know that. I woulda thought you guys had been together since all your “friend dates” years ago.”

“Men and women can be friends, Emmy.”

“Not you two, idiot. You’d been giving each other dopey eyes forever, but you’re dumb as shit and I’m pretty sure Kai’s a pretty airhead. No offense.”

Alexis shrugged. “I like him.”

“I’m sure you do. So why’re you looking like somebody kicked your dog? If this’s been going on for a while and you’ve been dating Matthew for years, what’s changing?”

“I… I’m not sure,” Alexis said, frustrated. “I don’t know, I just - I’m tired of being caught in the middle. I want to be with Kai, I really, really do, and the longer this goes on the longer it’s going to go public and then everything will go to hell. But he never talks about Lola, and I don’t want to be some kind of homewrecker. He had a kid with her, after all. They look happy enough.”

“So did you and Matthew, and that was never anything real, was it?” Emmy pointed out. She sighed. “Alexis, I love you. But like I said, you’re real dumb. You can spin breaking up with Matthew. And like you said, the longer this goes on the more it could be dangerous for everyone involved. If Kai really loves you like you seem to love him, then maybe he’d give up his sugar momma.” She hummed. “Dunno about his kid, though. Seems like a handful.”

Alexis couldn’t argue with that. “Maybe I’ll talk to him,” she mumbled.

Emmy shrugged. “It’s up to you. Just don’t drag it out too long. You’re better than that.”

Regaining some of her strength, Alexis lifted her chin and nodded. “You’re right. I am.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Now - creature of the black lagoon, or frankenstein?”

The costume party concluded shortly thereafter, sharing a hug and a wave before Alexis returned to her limo and drove back to her apartment. It was late, but not too late, and just up the road was the Belle mansion. Alexis’ eyes lingered on it, and she thought. Then decided.

She got dressed into something other than a mermaid outfit and called her limo to take her to the Belle mansion. Ringing the bell made Kai run outside, face alight with a mix of confusion, affection, and nervousness. He opened the gate for her and let her inside. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I wanted to see you.”

“ _See me_ or?”

“Just…” Her face screwed up in frustration. “Just talk,” she sighed.

Kai gave her an odd look, but let her inside. The Belle mansion was even more lavish than the Hamming one. All marble and stone and thousand-dollar paintings, a grand piano sat in the foyer, and upstairs Alexis could hear Lola playing guitar in her in-home recording studio.

Kai approached some housekeeper woman and took a toddler from her arms, holding the infant to his chest before returning to Alexis. Her eyes widened at the sight of the kid. She knew they looked similar, knew he _had_ a kid, but she and the child had never formally met, and in person it was unnerving to see Kai’s bright eyes staring back at her from a brown, infantile face.

The baby cooed and reached for her, making her lean back to avoid its touch. Kai gently took the child’s hand back and held it to his chest. “This is Seth,” he said softly.

Alexis managed to tear her eyes away long enough to look back at Kai, at her lover, at her friend. “Kai, I-” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want you to be with Lola anymore.”

Behind her, she heard the housekeeper gasp. She turned on her heel, narrowing her eyes and jabbing a finger at the woman. “You tell _anyone_ about this, and I’ll make sure you never work again, woman,” she hissed.

The housekeeper blanched, and ran off.

Turning back to Kai, her lover wore a shocked expression. “Alexis, what do you-”

“I want you to move in with me,” she said, breathless, her heart beginning to pound as she steeled herself and forced all the words out at once. “I know- I don’t know what your deal is with Lola, I don’t know how you feel about her, or if I’m asking too much, or if it’s a terrible idea, and I’m not very good with kids, but I don’t want this to be fake anymore, or, I don’t want to share you anymore, I just want you to be with me, no matter what it takes or how we have to get there.”

Eventually she stopped, sucking in air to replace all she’d babbled out. Kai stared at her with a bewildered look, and a heavy silence hung in the air, making her heart ache as she briefly, horrifyingly, thought he’d refuse. Then he lunged forward and kissed her, free hand cupped around her cheek, and she melted.

It was the strangest feeling, being pressed so close to Kai in a house that wasn’t hers, in a place that wasn’t safe, with this soft, wiggly being pressed between them. But it was a good feeling, and it was right, and it was what she wanted.

“I’ll buy you a house,” she said, babbling again. “I’ll become a rich and famous actress, I’ll buy you a mansion - two mansions - and have three maids and a butler, a gardener, I’ll buy Seth a pony, I’ll-”

He kissed her again, but more gentle and amused this time. “You don’t have to do anything,” he murmured. “I love you.”

Her heart ached. “I love you back,” she mumbled, and Seth cooed.

The next few months were a rush of careful press management and financial manipulation. They sold Kai leaving Lola as the young lover leaving an oppressive older woman, an image that was not, as Alexis learned, entirely inaccurate.

Lola Belle was ruthless, Kai said. And painfully intelligent when it came to playing the game of networking, even though she despised large groups and devoted herself entirely to her art. She wasn’t very close to Jupiter, despite adopting him, and only through the grace of kind nannies did that boy turn out semi-functional at all. And Seth’s birth had been somewhat unplanned, but Lola accepted it as a novelty, though that had all been discussed before.

It got to the point where Kai loathed Lola, he was miserable and unhappy, but for one he relied on her financially for housing and sending money back to his family, and for two, he had Seth, and he couldn’t abandon his child. He wouldn’t leave without full custody of him.

So that’s what he fought for, Alexis affording him the proper lawyers to combat Lola’s law team, and Kai eventually took the blow of being labeled selfish and cruel, keeping Lola Belle’s “beloved son” from her. He was marred in the papers, but at least Seth was his. It was no coincidence Lola had given up visitation rights once her stubbornness was dealt with.

However, as much as Alexis wanted to dump Matthew and be done with it, too much of her career was riding on his favor at the moment. If she pissed him off now and it became a drama, it could damage her reputation, and she really needed to get a part in the movies she’d been auditioning for. Once she got her roles and the film was done, she could leave him. Kai understood.

So they played it as the ever-generous Alexis Messina supporting her long-time friend against his scorned lover and baby momma. Lola Belle hated her for it, in part because Alexis was sure she’d suspected their affair, but it was done. Alexis “allowed” Kai to live in her high rise apartment. They slept in the same bed while Seth got a bed on the couch, shoving aside the TV and couch and dining table to make room for the baby things.

But it was too much. Seth didn’t like being in a small, crowded house, didn’t like all the change. Though he and his mother were hardly close, she was still his mother, and he cried for her nightly after they left. He also had to go to kindergarten now, too, which meant coordinating drop-offs and pick-ups. Alexis had to figure out how to live with the constant fear of getting apple juice or vomit or boogers on all her expensive clothes and furniture. Plus, it was hard to make a move on your spouse when you had a child sleeping ten feet away. The apartment was small already, and at this point it was unsustainable.

 _We can’t keep doing this_ , Alexis thought. But they had no choice. Lola paid some child support and Kai did have some savings, and she had her own money, but Bridgeport was full to bursting with people and family-size homes were hard to find, let alone ones within their budget. Many nights were spent lying awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the gentle breaths of Kai beside her and wondering how they’d find a better home.

Then, she knew.

Alexis pressed her phone to her ear. “Emmy, I need a favor.”

Cut to another day, when the three of them were sitting in Emmy’s living room, Kai and Alexis with shadows under their eyes from bad sleep, and Seth leaned against Kai’s thigh.

Emmy leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “You want me to do _what_?” She arched a dubious brow at Seth, wincing as the five year old crawled off the couch and began walking around the room, running his little hands over everything.

“You’re our last option,” Alexis explained, spreading her hands. “Practically every other available home in Bridgeport is either too small or too expensive. You have a house, and land that we can expand on. Let us move in with you. We pool our money to renovate your place, and then we have a nice house that all of us can live in.” She leaned forward, hands pressed together in pleading. “Please, Emmy. You’re the only one I can trust.”

Emmy maintained her expression for a few minutes, keeping a wary eye on Seth, before sighing and relenting. “I can’t believe I’m going to let you do this.” She gave Alexis a stern look. “Only for you! And I don’t like kids, so don’t think I want your little monkey running around all over the place. I love you guys, so I’ll do it, but this is still my house. You owe me one, Alexis.”

“Thank you, Emmy,” Alexis breathed, smiling. “Trust me. I can handle this.”

And handle it she did. Calling up some architects she knew - Alexis knew everyone - she arranged for the house to be renovated and furnished in record time. It was hard, having to live around all the construction, having to sleep in motel rooms while chemicals were applied, having to spend nights in the increasing cold weather because the roof was still just as a tarp laid over the top of the walls. But it was getting better, and every day their house took shape.

In the meantime, Alexis challenged herself to figure Seth out. Toddlers were strange, unusual creatures, who picked their nose and had no respect for brand recognition and preferred eating sand to organic salads. Parenting was not something she ever considered for herself, and children were not something she ever wanted, or at least not something she ever thought about.

But Seth wasn’t so bad. She stood and crossed her arms when he threw temper tantrums but never gave in. She insisted he eat properly and fed him the best she could. She picked him up from kindergarten and listened very seriously when he talked about his finger paintings, then decided to take him to the art gallery where he could learn about Picasso. He didn’t seem to fully appreciate it, but he liked the pretty colors.

At one point, midway through the house renovations, Emmy took her aside. “Alexis,” she began, “is this- are you-” She gathered her thoughts. “Do you _like_ being, like, a mom?”

Alexis thought about it.

"I don’t- it’s not something I ever thought about, something I ever envisioned for myself. But you never really know where you’re going to end up. Seth is… good. And cute. And it’s not hard to make sure he eats well and puts his pants on in the morning. I’ve met celebrities harder to manage than him.” She gave a wry smile. “Even so, it’s not something where I’d tell my past self to have a kid. There’s lots of people who don’t think about kids, then have them, and then regret it horribly. I… I think I might have just gotten very lucky. But I don’t know. I don’t mind it.”

By spring the house was complete, and it looked for all the world like a picture perfect suburban house. A small garden in the front by the door, a small backyard where you could watch the coastline while standing at the grill, and a tasteful indoors with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was perfect.

Or, close enough.

Kai and Alexis sat in their kitchen one warm, dark night, sitting at the dining table in their cozy green and beige little kitchen, hunched over glasses of alcohol.

“This is… nice,” Kai remarked, looking out the sliding glass door at the back of the kitchen, that led out to the porch and the edge of the water.

“It is.” Something hung between them, something heavy and concerning and unspoken. Dissatisfaction, perhaps, or fear? Confusion, doubt. Regret. “But it’s not what we want,” Alexis finished.

Kai’s lips parted, hesitating like he was trying to gather his thoughts, before giving up and sighing. “It’s not. And I feel like it makes me selfish.”

“Probably,” Alexis admitted. “But we- Jesus, Kai, we’re thirty now. We’re there. This is it. This is - this is where our parents were,” she murmured. “This is the nice, suburban house they had. The kids, the home. It’s where we come from. Small town, cozy living.”

“We?” Kai lifted his head, arched a brow.

Alexis nodded. “We.”

Kai nodded in understanding. They’d never discussed their pasts much, not since that day Kai admitted to coming from a dirt poor family, but it wasn’t hard to guess. They understood each other. “It’s what our parents had,” he said. “Not what we’ll have.”

Alexis nodded. “Fame and fortune is still the plan.” She smiled wryly. “We won’t settle.”

“No,” Kai said, decisively. “We won’t.”

_We won’t._


	2. The Weathers Family - Part One

Bright girl. Always had been. Or so her mother said.

Lily sat waiting to be called into the room for testing. This Aptitude Test would decide whether or not she got a full scholarship. Any less than that, even a partial scholarship, and her family wouldn't be able to afford it.

She remembered, distantly, when her father had called several years ago as she approached junior high and high school, and said he'd _gladly_ pay for her to go to a boarding school.

"She'd receive the finest education," he'd said. "And I'd be sure my money was going to something useful."

It's not that he skimped out on his child support, as he meted it out according to what he found "necessary." And if their father didn't find it necessary, well. Anything more than the bare minimum seemed too much by his standards. But this was a rare occasion, a very generous offer, and one that couldn't possibly be out of the goodness of his heart.

Sasha Weathers, lines of work and worry beaten into her face and her hands rough from dishwashing, gave her daughter a faint, unsure look, then pressed the phone back to her ear. "What school is it?"

That's when her father rattled off the name of some prestigious academy, where the tuition was more than mom made in a year and every child was practically guaranteed entry into an Ivy League school right out of graduation.

"What about Cliff? And Jason?"

"They don't have Lily's... acuity. She's a bright girl, Sasha. Always had been. I'd hate to see her talents go to waste in a podunk public school."

Lily's mother swallowed very hard. "When would I get to see her?"

"It's year-round. I'm sure she'd come home for holidays. Like I said, she'd be getting the finest education. And you wouldn't pay a dime for it."

Again Sasha looked at her daughter. The thirteen year old stared back with wide eyes, made wider from her massive glasses' lenses. "We'll think about it," Sasha sighed. "Goodbye, Lance.”

"Goodbye, Sasha."

Later, Sasha would look up the school and note that most of its graduates went into corporations or high-powered business positions. Lance was no doubt planning to groom her as his heir, or something like it.

Lily never did end up attending that school. She didn't want to be away from her mom and brothers, and Sasha felt it would have put them too much in their father's debt. So "podunk public school" it was. And there she worked tirelessly, becoming a straight-A student taking AP classes and doing all kinds of curriculars. Though always quiet ones - any clubs or groups that required her to spend too much time around people made her nervous. So she stuck to things like the newspaper club or the study club or the gardening club. Anything to boost her transcripts.

The only time she'd ever really taken advantage of her father's desire to somehow turn her into some fast-talking big city businesswoman is when he offered to pay for her to take horse riding lessons, back when she was still in her pony phase. While being around the large, dumb, pooping animals in person cured her of that notion and she ended up canceling the rest of the lessons, she at least had something to fill out her sophomore extracurriculars.

Lily curled her fingers into the fabric of her jeans, listened to the gentle hum of human voices waving around her. People she didn't know, friends making in-jokes she didn't understand, others like her staring at the knees or devices, a few even saying prayers.

"Weathers?" A teacher called. "Weathers?"

Lily stepped forward, looking tentative. She flashed her school id and registration papers. The teacher glanced over them, then gestured into the classroom where many other students already waited. Lily entered, took a seat, and hoped.

It seemed to take an eternity. It drew on everything she knew - science, writing, athletics, art, technology, culinary arts, photography, and some other subjects she wasn't sure she recognized. Still, at the end of it, she went home like everyone else, and hoped.

A few weeks later, the teacher handed back her results with a pleased, smug smile. "I knew you'd do well, Lily," she said.

With trembling hands, she opened the envelope and dared to read the letter inside.

_2071 out of 2400_

As Lily stared, agape, the teacher chuckled and went on. "You scored brilliantly. You could get any degree in almost any field and I've no doubt people would be scrambling to give you job offers." The teacher sighed. "Still, it's a shame you scored below average in the business portion. But then, social skills were never your strong suit."

Lily blushed but the teacher went on, leaving the teenager to stare at the paper that held her entire future.

_University is only a call or email away. We're looking forward to meeting you!_

Full financial aid and tuition coverage.

It was like a dream come true.

 

Everything seemed to go by in a blur after that. Mom ordered pizza that night for celebration (they had coupons for it) and then it became a rush to pack her things, send out all her records and applications, make sure the financial aid was all in order, get proper transportation, and then travel through an unfamiliar town to get to the university at the heart of it.

Lily stepped off the bus, suitcases clutched in one trembling hand, only to be nearly trampled underfoot as the twenty other new students barreled past her with _their_ suitcases, talking or texting or running to hug their friends.

Then Lily was standing there alone. She took a breath, glanced at the directions she’d written for herself, and started walking, luggage rolling and stumbling over the pavement behind her.

She had been welcome to attend one of the sororities at the college, or to have rented a house, but the co-ed dorms were covered by her financial aid and came with their own computers - and no “keggers” or parties took place there. She knew what colleges were like. All parties and drinking and unprotected sex. Just the thought made her shiver.

She was here to learn, to get that elusive 4.0. This was her one chance to support her family, and if she failed, if she did any less than perfect, it’d be all the harder to get a decent job in her hometown. Mom was depending on her. Cliff, and Jason, too. They’d need to go to college in a few years, and they didn’t have grades high enough for full tuition coverage. She needed to be able to support them.

She couldn’t fail.

Still, though. As she crept into her dorm and leapt up the stairs as fast as she could, keeping her head down in an attempt to avoid the gaze of the other students, she opened a few doors and found people already sitting on beds, unpacking their things. She’d blush and look away and stammer apologies, and run to the next room.

Eventually, on the top floor, she found a room with a single twin bed, a desk, and a living chair. She breathed a sigh of relief and closed the door behind her, only for someone to knock a second later. A kind-faced Asian girl with dark eyes and shoulder-length black hair greeted her with a wave and a smile as she opened the door. “The uni meet and greet is being held at the student union building,” she said. “I’m supposed to let everyone know.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

Lily wondered if it’d be rude to close the door, or if she’d be expected to make small talk, or if she should agree to go. Or not agree to go? Maybe she had an excuse. Was the meet and greet part of her grade? Technically it was participation. Would she be graded on her participation? Oh god, what if she got a lower grade because she talked less. She’d have to prepare some notecards on pre-written questions she could ask in class-

“You get a room to yourself? Lucky.” The girl peered over her shoulder.

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Yeah.”

“This your first year here?”

“Yeah.”

“Aw, cool.” The girl smiled again. “I live in the next room over with Tiberius. If you need anything don’t hesitate to ask.” She stuck out a hand. “I’m Ayana.”

Lily returned the handshake. “Lily.”

Ayana beamed. “Nice to meet you.” Then, her eyes widened in recognition as she spied the brightly colored papers poking out from Lily’s luggage bag. “Are those comic books?”

It turned out that Lily and Ayana had a lot in common. Ayana was majoring in art, and planned to illustrate her own comic books. Lily was getting a technology degree with a focus in coding, though others who shared her major focused more on forensics or military sciences.

Ayana was the one who convinced her to go to the meet and greet, who made sure she ate between classics and didn’t stay up until three in the morning studying the previous day’s class material. Tiberius also became a good friend. He was hoping to become a forensics cop, solving mysteries and doing DNA testing like in all the cop shows.

As she made more friends, she got more invitations to parties. Keggers, bonfires, general house parties. “It’s just one night!” they’d say. “Just show up for an hour or two, relax, hang out!”

“I have class in the morning,” Lily would squeak. “Sorry.”

Her new classes were exhausting - the good kind of exhausting, but still. The change of scene and the new friends were unexpected but good, and though she tore her hair out over grades and extra credit and participation, Lily was getting straight As more often than not.

What she hadn’t prepared herself for, though, were all the boys.

She couldn’t remember half of them, really. Punk boys, nerdy boys, the occasional jock - maybe they’d catch her after class or meet her through a friend of a friend, or when Ayana’s new beau brought his friend over and thought they might have a “double date.”

Lily would blush and clutch her books, or pencils, or whatever was nearest that she could hide behind. “You’re cute,” they’d laugh, eyes sparkling. “Do you wanna get coffee sometime?”

“N-No thanks,” she say, and flee as quickly as possible.

Garrison was nice to her, though. Almost as old as her mother, he was some maturely handsome divorcee who was working on his second degree while also teaching part-time at the school. He was nice, and pleasant to talk her, and though he never made a move Lily always thought he wouldn’t turn her down if she asked. She didn’t ask, though. She wasn’t one of those “daddy issues” kind of girls.

Mahmoud, though.

Mahmoud was a pretty boy with brown hair dyed blond and a long, angled face, who perused the comic book store from time to time and went bowling with his cluster of popular friends. He was… unremarkable. Or, perhaps, just mysterious. She didn’t know much about him, but they crossed paths multiple times on their way to and from class, and exchanged words or jokes.

He was kind, and easy to talk to. Not handsome, per se, he wasn’t followed by gaggles of giggling girls, or listed on one of those “top ten hottest guy” lists provided by the sororities. But he was pretty, and good, and though Lily stumbled over her words every time they spoke, he just laughed and kept the conversation going and made her feel at home.

At night, she imagined what it would be like to be _cool_ , to be the kind of girl who could ask a boy on a date, who would lean in for the kiss first, who’d take Mahmoud out under the night sky and look perfect in the moonlight, the kind of girl whose glasses never fogged up and her lips were always a little fuller than everyone else’s. And Mahmoud would tell her she was beautiful, and then…

And then she’d wake up to the smell of faintly burning waffles and a dozen other teenagers rushing around to make the eight am classes.

Still. Lily made some friends, got straight As, and never went to parties. It was everything she’d ever wanted.

And then came final exams.

It was a brutal gauntlet, exam day taking place over three different buildings, hours of test with only time to run to the next classroom in between, shoving granola bars and protein shakes into your face as you sprinted to the next test.

It was the last test of the day, and raining at that, Lily’s feet pounding the pavement and raising splashes of water as she stomped through the gathering puddles, putting more effort into protecting her textbooks than herself from the rain.

“Lily!”

She came to a stumbling halt and turned, wet hair clinging to her cheeks. She rubbed a quick hand over her glasses, trying to clear it of the rainwater. Mahmoud stood on the corner, waving at her, a bouquet of flowers in his free hand.

Lily jogged over. “What are you doing?” she asked. “It’s exam day!”

“I know, I just-” He hesitated, brows knitted together over his dark brown puppy dog eyes. “I was wondering if you-”

Lily’s watch beeped, and she yelped in horror. “Oh, god, I’m not gonna be early. Mahmoud,” she said, looking up, “I have to go. We can talk later, okay?” And she sprinted away, waving behind her as she went. Thunder rumbled overhead. “Wish me luck!”

Mahmoud waved feebly after her, a new gush of rain soaking his sweater, drowning the soft pink flowers in his grip. “Good luck,” he said, words lost to the thunder.

But life happens, and Lily lost track of most people aside from the ones in her dorm after that. Though exams were over, she still had several extra credit projects to fulfill, clubs to attend, networking to do. If she wanted to get a coding job - video game coding job, especially - right out of college, she needed to know people in that industry.

When her report card came she nearly cried. 4.0. Everything she’d ever wanted. Mom and Cliff and Jason all came to the graduation ceremony, and Ayana and Tiberius hugged her while in their own black-and-cream gowns and caps. Cliff even behaved himself, probably under deadly threat from mom.

Then was the last day of school. Ayana had left early, and Tiberius was out talking to an advisor about going for a master’s program. Most of the dorm was empty, leaving the space with an eerie silence. Lily finished packing the same luggage bag she’d arrived with, now bulkier with the weight of souvenirs and pictures and mementos from the time she’d spent here.

Her phone beeped, and checking the screen showed a text from Mahmoud.

_Going-away party tonight at Pam’s place. Want to go?_

Lily stared at the words, heart beating a little faster in her chest. This was probably the last time she’d get to see Mahmoud, and the last chance to attend a party at university. Drinking, dancing… kissing. If Mahmoud invited her that probably meant he wanted to see her. Her heart pounded with the potential of what could happen tonight. A kiss, a dance, a confession of love under the stars, glasses that didn’t fog up, everything.

Her fingers hovered over the reply button. Then, she remembered all the reasons why this was a terrible idea. She didn’t drink, so her tolerance would be terrible if she started tonight. Mahmoud probably didn’t want to see her _specifically_ , he was just inviting her alongside all his other friends. And she didn’t want to be tired or hungover or stuck at someone else’s house. And being around a bunch of strangers, with loud music playing…

She typed a reply. _Sorry, can’t._

She set aside her phone and went to the computer, absently checking her email. One message stood at the top of her inbox.

 _You are encouraged to apply…_ The message cut off. From: _Tortoise Shell Studios_.

The message wouldn’t load fast enough. Something something “in light of your education and aptitude,” something something “we would encourage you to apply” something something…

_We at the Twinbrook-based Tortoise Shell gaming development team would love to have you._

Lily leaned back in her chair, raised her hands to the sky, and shouted in joy.

 

And so Lily Weathers came home to a full-time job right out of school, a degree from a good university with a graduating 4.0, and a mom who didn’t have to work so much. Finally, they could make sure Cliff and Jason got into college, mom wouldn’t have to stress so much, and maybe they could all breathe a little easier.

But in the four years since she’d been gone, things had changed. She’d heard bits of gossip from mom and her brothers, but it was all coming out now. Cliff had kept up his streak of trouble-making all through high school, getting punished for skipping school, pulling pranks, and painting graffiti. It wasn’t even good graffiti, either, just spray-painted scribblings made to piss someone off.

At twelve, now, Jason was entering junior high and dealing with harder classes. He kept up well enough, getting Bs and balancing school and his social life. He joined a few clubs, the sports and the debate club, of all things. Jason liked people, and if he hadn’t been so dead set on his dream of college sports he might have considered going into business. But he lacked any kind of cutthroat nature, any desire for money or wealth. He was just a good kid.

Cliff, though. Lily thought back to all those years ago, when their father had abruptly moved to Bridgeport and his fancy divorce lawyers made sure mom didn’t even get to keep the house, meaning they had to move to Twinbrook.

_What do you mean I can’t keep all my stuff? Why do we have to live in this stupid house? Why couldn’t we have just stayed in our nice, old house._

_If mom had just shut up and stayed with dad, we could have all our old stuff back! I hate being poor! I hate being here! I want dad back!_

But aside from postcards and child support payments, dad never materialized. Jason didn’t remember much of him, but Cliff knew enough to romanticise. In his mind, dad was the tall, intense-faced, successful guy who bought his children’s love with toys and clothes and anything else they asked for. Dad could do no wrong. Except, abandoning his family.

Cliff never figured out how to accept that dad left them, so he blamed mom instead. Sasha took this with a quiet dignity, staying silent as Cliff screamed and cried and begged her to just “get back with dad, apologize, I don’t want to live here” and so on.

“No, Cliff,” she said, so quiet and sad. “This is our home now.”

“ _Screw_ your home!”

“Cliff!” Lily shouted.

“And _screw you_!”

Cliff ran into his room, throwing himself under the covers and crying softly. Jason slept in mom’s room that night, to give Cliff the peace and quiet he seemed to want.

But that was years ago. Cliff had become a teenager since then, though he was content to coast through his classes.

“Cliff, these Bs and Cs are fine, but during the teacher conference today, your teachers told me you could be doing a lot better if you just applied yourself.”

Cliff grunted, popping a potato chip in his mouth as he continued staring at the TV.

“Cliff, look at me.”

Scowling, the pudgy teenage boy looked up. “So what? I like my Bs and Cs. Not everybody can be perfect like _Lily_.”

Sasha sighed. “Honey, do you even know what you want to do when you grow up? You’ll be going to college like Lily in a few years. You can’t slack off forever.”

“I dunno. Maybe science or some bullshit. Scientists make a lot of money, right?”

“Cliff, we talked about the swearing.”

“Whatever. Science is pretty easy. I’ll do that. There, happy?”

Sasha sighed again, and the conversation ended there.

Cliff at least did have some aptitude for science. Even before they left the old house, and the old town, he’d had a knack for gardening. While Jason just liked being outside, Cliff liked food and flowers and the chemistry aspects of it. Science had always been one of his better classes, even if he did hate the fishing and frog dissection parts of it.

But in his later teens he started spending more time away from the house, and started dating Lolly Racket. The Rackets were one of the older families of Twinbrook, who’d been around back when it was a successful industrial city, before the Depression had messed up the economy so bad the town never really recovered. As such, they had the biggest, nicest house, and the most money, though they weren’t known for their legal and ethical practices.

Lolly had an older brother who joined the family business as soon as he could, dabbling in business, politics, and the occasional criminal enterprise, while Lolly was more of a romantic, planning to marry some rich boy to add to the family resources. Though she was also known for being a “mean girl,” relentless in her teasing of the many other poor, struggling teenagers whose families endured the same hardships the Weathers family did.

But this never deterred Cliff. He was meant to have money and success, he was sure of it. And Lolly was beautiful. All he needed was a little luck, a little suaveness, and an assurance that he would go to college and come back a wealthy and educated man.

And she fell for it. Though time would tell if the high school sweethearts would last any longer than graduation, Cliff insisted their love was true and forever.

Meanwhile, Sasha figured she might try to get back in the dating scene again. Dating with grown children as an adult was easier than dating with young ones. No pressure to be the “new dad,” but content to be “your mom’s boyfriend.” But meeting people was hard and she lacked the looks and charm of her younger days. So online dating it was.

In the small town of Twinbrook, her dating pool was limited. A few younger men hit on her, projecting some kind of cougar fantasies. A few complimented her “size” and offered some disgusting commentary on what they’d like to do to her. And a small percentage were married men - using pseudonyms, but they weren’t subtle - looking for some action on the side.

Eventually she crossed digital paths with a single, older man. Dudley Racket, the disowned third son of the current Racket patriarch, who left behind his family’s cutthroat lifestyle to become the benevolent sheriff of the town. He lived alone on the border of the town. No kids, never married, but a good man. “Guess I never found the right one,” his profile said. “Maybe this’ll change that.”

Sasha figured that was good enough, and messaged him back.

They exchanged some conversation, though his replies were typically short and curt, lacking punctuation like he’d written them in a hurry. But still, he seemed nice, if a little simple and devoted to his work. For the first time in a long time, Sasha held out hope that maybe she’d end up with a _good_ man this time.

Someone who’d provide for and protect her and her family, unlike the string of intense womanizers, bad boys, and cold-hearted businessmen who’d made up her love life until now. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, really. She’d come from a normal family, a normal life, did fine in school, parents never divorced. Yet she never could keep a decent man.

They exchanged contact info, and Sasha waited for Dudley’s call. A few days passed, then a week. She grew antsy, and called first.

“I’m sorry, is this- is this Dudley? Racket, Dudley Racket?”

A heavy grunt came from the other end of the line. “Yeah?”

“I’m- I’m Sasha. From the site, the dating site, I was-”

“Oh! Uh. This’s a bad time. Can I- Can I call you back?”

“Oh.” Her heart dropped. “Oh, yeah, of course. I’m sorry if I-”

“Thanks.” And he hung up.

This went on for a while. Sasha would wait for a call, and either one would come on a blue moon and nothing of real importance would be said, or she’d get antsy and call first, only for the call to end early or be sent to voicemail.

Eventually, after enough time had passed that Sasha thought _some_ kind of chemistry ought to exist, she asked him.

“Dudley, do you- would you like to go out to lunch sometime? My work - the diner, near the beach - it’s having a special. We could get to really meet each other.”

A moment of silence. “I don’t know if that’d really fit into my schedule, Sasha. And I don’t - this has been good, and all, but I don’t know if this- if I- if this really suits both of us.”

“Oh.” Sasha swallowed, heat rising behind her eyes. “I see.”

“It’s nothing against you-”

“No, I know, I totally understand, I just-” She cleared her throat. “I understand. I’ll… talk to you later, Dudley.”

“Yup.”

And the call ended, with an anticlimactic click. She never did talk to him later.

Instead she tried again, and harder. Lowering her standards a bit, going for some other men. Harwood Clay was a nice man, who even made the first move by inviting her out. But he was old - not even middle aged, but old, in his sixties compared to her forties, and he wasn’t quite her type. He wore eyeliner, even at his age, and cut his hair like a teenager, with an art studio built into his house that sat on the river, where he raved about his sculptures.

And then there was Lenny. Lenny Smith-Jones, divorced grandfather of two, and about her age. They joked that he wasn’t old enough to be a grandfather, Sasha saying she was grateful her kids were still just teenagers and that Lily was too preoccupied with work to think about boys. Lenny’s daughter had gotten knocked up a few years out of high school by some boy next door, though thankfully the two had gotten married and seemed happy, even having another baby.

But Lenny’s ex-wife got the privilege of living with them, while Lenny rented a house deeper in town, where he too shared Sasha’s sentiment of rebuilding your life as a fairly unaccomplished adult.

“Never was good at marriage,” he said. “Renee - my ex-wife - we do fine as roommates taking care of our daughter and her kids. But as a couple? Fuck.” He took a sip of his drink.

They’d met at a bar today, sharing drinks and pub food. Though it was hardly a fancy affair - there was a dance game machine in the corner with two kids, either brothers or friends, taking turns inputting their quarters. It was one o’clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and it was just them, the two boys, an old woman at the corner of the bar having her gin and tonic, and the bartender, some post-college kid working part-time.

“I guess I’m just a fuck-up, you know?” Lenny continued, swirling his glass with his elbows on the table. “I don’t even know how to be a grandpa. I guess that’s why Renee got to stay in the house when we needed more room for the babies. She’s alright with them. Bakes cookies and shit. I… I dunno. I didn’t know what to do when my daughter was a kid. Hardly know what to do with her now. It just seems like I… like I missed the boat somewhere, ya know? I took the wrong step or the wrong train or was too late to class, and then everybody got better than me. Better at being married, better at being a father, better at getting a good job. Now suddenly I’m in my forties and I got nothing to show for it.” He set down his glass and looked her in the eye. “You know what that feels like?”

Sasha nodded. “Yeah. I think I do.”

Lenny’s lips spread in a slow smile.

The next thing she knew she was getting railed in the bathroom, all quick and fumbling and sloppy like she was sixteen again and tipsy on her parents’ alcohol. She couldn’t stifle a giggle as a condom was summoned, hastily put on like a teenager recalling the cucumber in his sex ed class. It was fast, but good, and something she hadn’t experienced in a long time.

 _Being desired_. It felt good, especially to a middle-aged overweight mother of three.

Lenny, cleaned up, awkwardly handed over her purse as she emerged from the bathroom stall, cleaned up and rosy-cheeked. “We should, uh. We should do this again sometime.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, breathless as she put her glasses back on. “We should.”

And so it became a… thing. Not quite dating, not quite friends with benefits. They saw each other at the grocery store and smiled at each other, and had more outings like the first. A date, a talk, a moment of commiseration, and fucking.

There was a moment of tension when Sasha suggested actually dating, though. Being open about their situation, maybe meeting each other’s kids.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Lenny asked, face screwed up in disgust. “No, like, like- Let’s not ruin’ a good fuckin’ thing, right? We’re doing just fine when it’s just us. I don’t-” He sighed. “God, I’m not ready for this commitment bullshit. Just… gimme a while.”

But it wasn’t a rejection. It was a strain, but Sasha called him back the next week to see if he wanted to get together at the “lookout point” of the town, with the implication being some fun in the backseat of one of their cars. He accepted, and their arrangement remained in place.

And it stayed that way, even up until Lily rolled in with her degree in hand and a job at the ready. With a second income, Lily’s even better than Sasha’s, it was nice not to have to scramble for money, to look through the couch cushions when you needed coins for the laundromat. Jason was happy, Lily was working, Sasha was figuring out how to date again, and even Cliff seemed… well, Cliff was Cliff, but he had Lolly and at least agreed to go to college.

“Lily.”

Lily looked up, eyes bloodshot from spending a day or three just staring at the same screen, scrolling through hundreds, thousands of lines of code. She worked harder than maybe everyone else in the office, and was proud of it.

Her boss, Mr. Hunter, stood over her. Hunter was his first name, not his last, but seeing as most people in Twinbrook couldn’t pronounce his last name (some convoluted foreign name starting with “A”) he went by his first. He was the one who founded the company here, providing in this job-starved city.

“Can I help you, sir?”

He smiled. He was a somewhat heavy man in his forties, pale-skinned, with long blonde hair and a characteristic black beret atop his head. He favored plain jeans and a mix of professional and geeky shirts. “I’ve come to congratulate you. Your contributions to the project have been invaluable, and I wouldn’t want them to go unnoticed.”

Her cheeks warmed, lips spreading in a wide smile. “Thank you, sir. It means a lot.”

He nodded. “As a reward, I was thinking of taking you out to lunch.”

“Sir?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “You can drop the honorific, Miss Weathers. Yes, a lunch. I think you deserve it, for all you’ve done.”

“Oh. I- thank you. Very much. I’m not sure-”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you… tomorrow? I’ll come get you at eleven.” He smiled, and then glided away, moving to the next cubicle and conferring with one of her co-workers.

Lily watched him go, something unsettling and unnamed souring her stomach. She shook her head, and went back to the computer, trying to figure out how to get a certain physics element to work without making the player character glitch out every time it picked something up.

She wished she could have forgotten the lunch, but it was burned into her brain, as clear and present as if she’d written it on the inside of her eyelids. Even so, she jumped when he appeared at her cubicle at eleven the next day. “Ready to go?” he asked, smiling.

“Sure. I mean, yes. Of course.” And she picked up her bag and followed him.

She expected to go to the diner, maybe say hello to mom while she was there, but instead of heading to her car or even his car, he chided her, telling her to walk with him. “Sir?”

“It’s just around the corner. We don’t need to drive.”

And then she realized. They weren’t going to the diner for lunch, they were going to the bistro. The place people went on special occasions, or anniversaries, or really really fancy dates. Her stomach sour again, she followed him dazedly into the building, where a waiter acknowledged Mr. Hunter as soon as they arrived, escorting them to a prepared booth.

Mr. Hunter sat on one side while Lily sat on the other, a small tea candle burning between them. Her boss smiled. “Have you ever been here before? I’ve eaten here a few times. I figured today was a special occasion.”

Lily nodded. Glancing aside, she saw a few of the Racket family conferring with some gentlemen she hadn’t seen around town, a bottle of champagne shared between them. Then another waiter put menus in front of her and she had to decide what to eat, her mind boggling at the names she couldn’t pronounce mixed with the ingredient lists mixed with the prices. _Twelve dollars for pig trotters in a ginger sauce_?

“I’ll have a salad,” she said.

“Wine, miss?”

“Oh, no thank you.”

“I’ll have the chardonnay,” Mr. Hunter replied, and took Lily’s menu to hand it to the waiter for her. Then the waiter was gone, and it was just the two of them, staring at each other across the table. Mr. Hunter smiled. “I hope you don’t mind me dragging you from your desk like this. I just like to treat my employees when I think they’ve earned it.”

“It’s very generous of you, Mr. Hunter.”

He hummed. “I know the woman who owns this place. Do you know her? Mary Baker? Lives in one of the fine houses near the Rackets. She’s got two sons. Single mother, like yours, unfortunately. Must be hard to raise two boys like that.”

“It’s certainly a challenge.”

He laughed lightly. “I don’t envy her. Or your mother, for that matter. Here, tell me-”

And he started asking her questions about her family, her personal life, intermixed with questions about their project at work. What she thought of her co-workers, of working for him, of him in general. He joked that he didn’t believe her when she said she didn’t have a boyfriend. When his drink came he indulged readily, the sweet smell of alcohol on his breath wafting over from across the table.

He got a steak while she had her salad, picking at it and saying little as he went on, leaning ever farther across the table, looking at her so earnestly and smiling at everything she said, no matter how small.

Then, without warning, something in him changed, and he was sitting back against the wall of the booth, and the alteration in his manner made her stomach un-sour a bit.

“Hunter, sweetheart.” A vaguely New-Orleansian accent came from behind Lily’s shoulder, and in a moment a plump, round-faced black woman was standing beside their table, smelling of cooked meat and spices. “You enjoying the food?”

Mr. Hunter beamed. “Of course, my love. Anything you make is perfection.” They kissed briefly, and afterwards Mr. Hunter introduced them. “Mary Baker, culinary genius and model.”

The woman laughed. “I’m one of those. Good to see you, honey, and good job on that project Hunter told me about. He’s very pleased with you.”

Comforted by the presence of a woman who reminded her of her mother, Lily relaxed slightly. “Thank you. I-”

“I’m sure you’ve got stuff to do in the kitchen, Mary,” Mr. Hunter said. “We’re nearly done here.” He winked. “You can put the bill on my tab.”

“You flirt.” Mary smiled. “You have a good rest of the day, you two. I hope to see you in here again.”

And then she was gone, and Mr. Hunter went right back to the way he was before, all his attention on Lily and something about him putting her all on edge. Her boss wiped his mouth delicately with a cloth napkin and finished his drink, then stood from the booth. “I think it’s time we head back to the office.”

“Yes.”

At last the day was over, and Lily was glad to be released. But then his hand found it’s way to the small of her back, touching gently as he guided her from the booth, and suddenly her throat seemed too tight, shoulders tense. He dropped his touch as soon as they stepped out, though he walked alongside her back to the office, still making small talk.

Then she was back in her cubicle and he was standing above her. “Keep up the good work, Lily,” he said, and winked.

Then he was gone, and Lily was left with a sour stomach.


End file.
